The best single-cart multiplayer games for DS/3DS

[Asura]

This is something I've been thinking about this week, as I have a fair few of these and play them with other people regularly.

Single-cart multiplayer or "download play" is, to me, one of the best features (often unsung) of the DS/3DS family. I know the GBA technically did it first, but I think it was that, coupled with the DS's wireless ability that really made it usable.

Thing is, some games do it better than others.

There are a few, like Jump Ultimate Stars/Superstars, for which the download play is really limited (in those games, the game gives each player a random selection of characters from a subset available in the game). There are others, like the Sonic Olympic Games ones that have very long loading times between each stage or event, as they download the games in chunks. Those titles also make another mistake; they're too complex to have a "quick go" when coupled with loading times for the events, loading times for the explanation of the controls (!!!)...

Then there are some games which stun you because they don't support download play (that recent Pokemon puzzle game on the eShop is good example).

So what do people think are the best games which support download play?

To start us off with a few, the ones we get the most mileage out of are Mario Kart 7 (and MKDS, as that worked similarly until we got 7) and Tetris 3DS.

However, I have to make a shout-out to Bomberman. Either DS Bomberman game is fine (once you enter the multiplayer mode, they're identical), but they're superb games for a quick download-play blast, supporting up to 8 players, and having a huge number of stages and variations on the standard Bomberman formula. I just wish Hudsonsoft would make a version for the eShop, because I would like to have that on my machine at all times.

[charlesr]

On the DS: Grid, Meteos and Lode Runner are probably awesome single cart play (not tried though)

[Nu-Eclipse]

Tetris DS > Tetris 3DS. It's not even a contest.

Tetris DS has 10-player vs. mode off a single cart, ffs!

[Asura]

Tetris DS > Tetris 3DS. It's not even a contest.

Tetris DS has 10-player vs. mode off a single cart, ffs!

Going to have to disagree with you, though Tetris DS was certainly fun.

Tetris 3DS both has 8-player multiplayer (I think), which for me is about as useful as 10 player as I've never got more than 6 people together at one time, and also, it has a remix of the actual Tetris music which the DS version doesn't have - it's instead branded with loads of extraneous Nintendo stuff which, whilst fun, I felt detracted a bit from the core experience.

However, the main advantage of Tetris 3DS from my perspective is that it's available for a very small amount on the eShop, so it can always be on your machine. It's been designed the right way, too, in that the loading times are VERY fast and there's a button on the first menu that does this:

"Press this one button now to ignore all other stuff in this game and just go straight to playing normal Tetris"

... which I feel every arcadey handheld game should have (I'm looking at you, Ridge Racer 3DS - which has you go through a multitude of menus when it really needed a JUST GO button).

[Nu-Eclipse]

Going to have to disagree with you, though Tetris DS was certainly fun.

Tetris 3DS both has 8-player multiplayer (I think), which for me is about as useful as 10 player as I've never got more than 6 people together at one time, and also, it has a remix of the actual Tetris music which the DS version doesn't have - it's instead branded with loads of extraneous Nintendo stuff which, whilst fun, I felt detracted a bit from the core experience.

However, the main advantage of Tetris 3DS from my perspective is that it's available for a very small amount on the eShop, so it can always be on your machine. It's been designed the right way, too, in that the loading times are VERY fast and there's a button on the first menu that does this:

"Press this one button now to ignore all other stuff in this game and just go straight to playing normal Tetris"

... which I feel every arcadey handheld game should have (I'm looking at you, Ridge Racer 3DS - which has you go through a multitude of menus when it really needed a JUST GO button).

Sorry - if you're talking about "Korobeiniki" (the Tetris song - Game A), then you're wrong - it actually is in Tetris DS, albeit in single-player mode. And the version of it in Tetris DS is a lot more faithful to the GB original than the remix in Tetris 3DS.



Tetris DS has far more options than the 3DS version, many more different and clever ways to play Tetris in both single and multiplayer modes. And it plays a far better game of Tetris when all is said and done. I don't see why Tetris DS having a general Nintendo flavour should count against it. The fact that the game is kinda rare nowadays is proof that such a theme wasn't detrimental to the game's popularity.

[Asura]

Well, I guess it's splitting hairs anyway. Both of the games offer very good single-cart download play.

It's not that I disliked the Nintendo branding; I'm a big Ninty fan. It's just that with all the various incarnations of Tetris I've bought over the years, all I ever do is play regular, "marathon", starting-from-level-1 Tetris, and the most basic "vs" mode for multiplayer. I've never been very interested in the various puzzle modes and stuff they include; instead I'd prefer the game was cheaper and had lightning-fast loading times. Having the "**** this noise and JUST GO" button on the first screen in the 3DS Tetris counts for a lot for me (if it seems like I'm fixating on that feature a bit much, I definitely am - I just think that should be a required feature of any game where it can sensibly go in).

The fact that the game is kinda rare nowadays

Really? I see it second-hand and even new all over the place, CEX, GAME, Sainbury's...

Does anyone have any more to suggest?